My Soapbox for Equestrian Writings
Forget Rolex. Forget Badminton. Eventing is going virtual with an international 5* event which will raise money for medical charities. Organized by Rachel Wakefield, of Uptown Eventing, the event is scheduled for May 6-10th and will be live streamed on the Virtual Eventing 2020 website. The event will feature all three phases, as well as […]
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The FEI’s Eventing Frangible Device Working Group has introduced updated standard for frangible cross-country fences. The team spent six months reviewing slow-motion video of horses jumping fences, and took into consideration testing performed by British Eventing, MIM at Chalmers University (SWE), and the Transport Research Laboratory (TRL). A frangible/deformable fence is a fence that is […]
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Scott Linklater, the husband of late Canadian eventing rider Katharine Morel has started the Katharine Morel & Kerry On Eventing Safety Fund to raise $250,000 to help horse trials organizers in Canada fit Mim or frangible safety equipment to fences. So far, the GoFundMe campaign has raised $20K.Morel and her mare Kerry On both died […]
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Since horses see colors differently than humans, so it’s important to consider jump colors as they can influence horse and rider safety. Horses have dichromatic vision, which means they have two receptor types (light-sensitive cells in the retina of the eye) used in color vision. This gives them limited color vision, with the ability to […]
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Every time there is a rotational fall where a rider dies, the headlines across the equine media proclaim it’s time to make eventing safer. I think the first time I saw the headline, “Eventing in Crisis” was back in 2008. Unfortunately, over the weekend there was another rotational fall. Another death. This time it cost […]
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Going into stadium today, Pippa Funnel had only a hair’s whisker of a lead over Piggy French (whom she calls “Piglet”) and Oliver Townend. Wearing her lucky number, 77, she managed to hold onto the lead when all three riders had one rail down and win by 0.1 penalty point riding MGH Grafton Street. It’s […]
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Still no replay up of the cross country rides. This compilation shows the problems that were had on course, with a few fences causing a lot of the problems. I hope Burghley posts the XC replay soon because I’d like to see the course ridden without the problems. There were some scary moments shown in […]
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Going into today’s cross-country course at Burghley, riders were already talking about how tough the course would be. That proved to be correct. Out of 64 starters, just 33 made it through the finish flags; 22 added no jumping faults; and only one horse and rider combo — Piggy French on Vanir Kamira — made […]
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